Tag: visionontv

Projects that need to work to help #reboot the #openweb

The #OGB is important to develop better ways of having “trust” based conversations and “trust” based “governance” in the #openweb. It is built on years of on-the-ground organizing and emphasizes the need for voluntary cooperation and collaboration. The project recognizes the problems in alternative tech, starting with the #4opens to remove complexity to building governance structures that are native to the #fediverse. The #OGB address the limitations of #mainstreaming approaches.

The #indymediaback project is a reboot of the original #Indymedia project, which was a decentralized, grassroots media network that emerged in the late 1990s and early 2000s. The project aims to learn from the mistakes and challenges faced by the original Indymedia, particularly the split between the #fashernitas and #geekproblem factions.

The focus of the #indymediaback reboot is to return to the path of the #fashernitas, which emphasizes open media and decentralized structures, rather than control and centralization. The project aims to build an open media network (#OMN) that promotes direct democracy, open publishing, and anti-authoritarianism.

The reboot also acknowledges the risk of another split within the community, particularly if some members push for a control/encryptionist path. The challenge is to find a way to navigate this without succumbing to tribalism and power politics.

The #indymediaback project recognizes the importance of hashtags and semantic web technologies, which were not core to the original Indymedia project. Tags and metadata are being used to help organize and categorize content.

Overall, the #indymediaback project aims to revive the spirit of open media and grassroots activism, while learning from past mistakes and embracing new technologies and approaches.

The #OMN (Open Media Network), is a decentralized network of media sites that share content and promote independent media. It aims to provide an alternative to mainstream media by creating a network of interconnected sites that prioritize openness, collaboration, and decentralization.

The #OMN project emphasizes the importance of grassroots community-driven media, where people and groups can create and share their own content. It seeks to challenge the dominance of #mainstreaming media and promote a more equitable and just society.

The project has been running for over ten years and operates with an #openprocess. Users can become mods after being involved for a certain period of time. The modding process is based on a clear project statement and encourages a respectful and inclusive community.

The #OMN project is closely related to the #visionontv project, which is a grassroots media project that creates and distributes independent video content. The two projects share similar values and goals in promoting alternative media and challenging mainstream narratives.

What is visionontv

#Visionontv is a grassroots media project that aims to provide an alternative to mainstream media by creating and distributing independent video content. The project has been running for over ten years and is based on the principles of openness, collaboration, and decentralization. It uses #FOSS open-source software and decentralized platforms to create and distribute activist video content. One of the key features of the project is its participation in the Open Media Network (#OMN), a decentralized network of media sites that share content and promote independent media that is not controlled by any single entity. The project emphasizes the importance of grassroots community-driven media, where people and groups can create and share their own content.

The world walks right past us looking the other way and takes the big bundle of bills from capitalism.

OK, had to close then open new accounts on #visionontv #peertube because of #spam, the spam is starting agen – there is an update that allows you to put new accounts on ask/moderation, we need to upgrade at some point to get this.

Interesting this is exactly the way our ten-year-old #OMN project handles flows as is the “new” moderation in #bluesky… if we don’t manage to go to the world, the world come to us… well more like the world walks right past us looking the other way and takes the big bundle of bills from capitalism.

This is normal, we are still doing needed work, but better would be good to 🙂

#bluesky #Nostr #activertypub

They all share #4opens #openweb tech, so this is a win.

Where they differ is in the “culture” they come from and push.

#bluesky comes from surveillance capitalism, it’s from the #dotcons and has meany of the same assumptions, just “better”.

#Nostr comes from the #encryptionists and #bitcoin bro crew and suffers from being from this mess.

#activertypub is #openweb native and comes from the #4opens traditions the whole software world is actually built on.

#KISS

The #KISS path is to simply bridge them all and let them cooperate, as they are all a part of the #openweb family.

The more complex and messy path is that some of them might not want to do this… OK now we get to the part where piss is likely signal rather than noise. Let’s draw a line, (a date is good) if they don’t bridge, we let loose the pee, liquid trickling in will short out their servers.

Ending thought:

For a lot of our #fashernistas in our spaces, things only matter if they come from #mainstreaming this is obviously crap blinded behaver – but it’s hard to communicate why, likely they can’t see me 😉

PS. I liked that joke.

A draft funding application – OGB

Requesting funding for the Open Governance Body (#OGB) project, which is being developed by the Open Media Network (#OMN). OMN is a collective that builds and hosts #4opens standards-based socio-political software. Our mission is to provide communities with the tools they need to organize, communicate, and make decisions.

The #OGB project is a grassroots initiative that seeks to empower communities by giving them a stronger voice in decision-making. We believe that traditional social coding projects that are based on a top-down approach to power are not effective. Our approach is different. We are developing a bottom-up solution that is based on the principles of sharing power and collective decision-making.

Our team has years of experience in grassroots social tech projects. We have been directly involved with #UnderCurrents, #indymedia, #VisionOnTV, #LondonBoating, among others, and have a firm grasp of what does and does not work within organizing both social and technological communities. We have also worked on UN and World Bank projects in West Africa and have decided to manage them through community/scrum, rather than formal methods.

We are seeking funding in the amount of $50,000. This funding will be used to pay four people to work on the project at a fixed rate of ten thousand euros for 9-12 months of work. The bulk of the work will be programming and implementation details. The remaining ten thousand will be used for servers, expenses, outreach work, extensive testing, and basic project upkeep.

A Look at Existing Projects

It is important to note that foundation funding agendas can have a negative effect on the agendas of #openweb projects. A brief look at some existing projects highlights this issue. For example, decidim.org, which is an NGO process similar to loomio.org, Formal processes can be a bad tool for “herding cats” in social challenge or activist groups. And has been imposed numerous times in activism but has always failed.

After reviewing loomio.org, it is clear that the same ideas and workflows were pushed onto #climatecamp, #indymedia, and #occupy. In the first two cases, it ossified the projects, and in the last case, it was a mess. The #processgeeks behind these projects have not changed, and their projects are a bad fit for life and a terrible fit for the fediverse and activism. However, they may work for some NGOs and more formal cooperative organizing.

It is important to note the differences between formal and informal governance structures. Both use “consensus,” but the Open Governance Body is more like a do-ocracy than a formal governance structure.

 

The visionontv project has been runing for over ten years

The #visionontv project has been running for over ten years. It is a grassroots media project that aims to provide an alternative to mainstream media by creating and distributing independent video content. It is based on the principles of openness, collaboration, and decentralization. The project uses open-source software and decentralized platforms to create and distribute activist video content. Emphasizes the importance of grassroots community-driven media, where individuals and groups can create and share their own content.

One of the key features of the #visionontv project is its is a part of the Open Media Network (OMN), a decentralized network of media sites that share content and promote independent media that is not controlled by any single entity.

http://visionon.tv

 

 

What is visionontv

The #visionontv project is a part of the Open Media Network (#OMN), which is a grassroots initiative to create a decentralized and federated network of media platforms that share common values and principles. Create an internet distribution channel for alternative news, covering topics such as social movements, environmental issues, human rights and more. The project also provides video production education and training for activists and citizen journalists. The visionontv grew from undercurrents and was co-founded by Hamish Campbell, a filmmaker and activist.

History of copyleft activist grassroots video distribution

Hamish Campbell, the founder of #VisiononTV, began his journey into copyleft video through his project called #RoughCuts. In a recent interview, Campbell shared how RoughCuts started as one of the first copyleft video projects that encoded activist video in MPEG-1 format, an early standard format for video. He would burn CDs with an hour of different films and create a user interface using HTML to make it easy for people to watch them on their computers.

The CDs were sold for five pounds each, the project was designed to be a sustainable #DIY media distribution platform. People were encouraged to buy the CD, copy it, and give it away for free, and the revenue generated from the CD sales would help fund national screening tours, pay for travel expenses and equipment repair.

As the technology of the web advanced, people could watch videos online at a reasonable quality, which made the CDs obsolete. Hamish took a break from RoughCuts until the technology caught up a year or two later, and he started VisiononTV, a webTV project distribution platform for on-the-ground screenings. People could watch the videos on the web, but the primary focus was on taking the content offline and showing it on big screens to an audience in the same room.

Hamish Campbell’s RoughCuts project was a pioneering effort in the field of copyleft video, which paved the way for his later project, VisiononTV. His approach of creating sustainable DIY media distribution platforms continues to inspire and influence media activists around the world.

A interview with Hamish Campbell on grassroots media and tech

Interviewer: Can you tell us about your project #RoughCuts and how it started?

Hamish Campbell: Before I did #VisiononTV, I started a project called RoughCuts, which was offline copyleft video. It was one of the first copyleft projects with video, encode in the MPEG-1 an early standard format for video, about VHS quality video. You could fit an hour on a cheap CD. I would burn these CDs with different films, and an interface to the front of it using an HTML page, so you put the CD in your computer, and this web page would pop up with a list of all the films with a bit of information and a link to play the film. Then I would copy these in a CD burner. I’d go around the country doing screenings and I would sell the CDs for five pounds if people wonted to support the project.

Interviewer: How did you fund national screening tours for Rough Cuts?

Hamish Campbell: I funded national screening tours by selling these CDs, which were available for free if people wanted to copy them. So, I said, buy the CD, then go home, and copy it and give it all to your friends. It was a take-it-away-and-distribute-it-yourself project. It was sustainable DIY media distribution, so the person who was doing it could be sustained and could actually make a little bit of money to travel around and pay the expenses, repair cameras, etc.

Interviewer: How did the technology change of the web impact RoughCuts?

Hamish Campbell: The technology of the web moved on, so people actually could put video on the web and watch it on the web in reasonable quality. So then, why buy a CD? Why have a physical medium? It became an obsolete project. So then I kind of stopped doing that for a while, but then a year or two later, the web technology caught up, and it was really easy to do web video. So I thought, let’s do a webTV project distribution project for on the ground screenings, so people can watch on the web, but what it’s really about is taking it off the web and showing it on a big screen to a bunch of people in the same room. That’s how #VisiononTV came about.

 

Hamish Campbell is an activist and filmmaker

Hamish Campbell is an activist and filmmaker who gained attention for capturing footage of a police raid on the Independent Media Center in 2001. His footage was used in court and led to several police officers being disciplined and sacked. Campbell continues to work in media activism, founding the group #VisionOnTV, which aims to create a more horizontal media that challenges traditional gatekeepers. He believes that corporate media will continue to exist, but that we can build a different kind of media that is more open and democratic. Campbell is less interested in traditional media, and more focused on creating a new kind of media that is based on a more #4opens collaborative, decentralized model.

What do you mean by “mainstreaming”

Q. what do you mean by “mainstreaming”.

A. we all worship the #deathcult (neo-liberalism) in polatics, economics, most of the food we eat, our jobs and social lives are all mediated/mostly created by this invisible world-view. In progressive terms #mainstreaming is pushing this agender to build carriears and social structures to further the personal #stupidindividualism created by the #deathcult we live in. This is a circle that is going to kill and displace billions of people over the next 100 years from #climatechaos and the social feedback loop of political #fascism

#stupidindividualism is created by the social disintegration of the last 40 years of neo-liberalism, fascism is an outcome of this.

Examples from the UK groups @NovaraMedia while producing fab content its all distributed through the #dotcons and in the end they aspire to be the new @guardian to take the role of #traditionalmedia This is fair anufe but the wider “we” need to balance this with #grassroots media which is a non #mainstreaming mission.

Most #NGO agrenders are #mainstreaming this is an easy to see view.

I played a role in training thousands of grassroots “journalists” over the last 25 years at #undercurrents, #indymedia, #visionontv and now #OMN the majority that are still creating media went onto build there carriears in the mainstream and #NGO sectors few stayed in non #mainstreaming production missions. Cant blame them for this, though no alts were sustained from this which was why we did the training.

In each case grassroots/alt structures were devoured by the #deathcult pushing the need for mainstreaming survival – cant blame people for this.

BUT we need a working alternative if we are going to change the world that does not kill and displace billions of people over the next 100 years #XR

learning for expirence the #OMN is a political/tech tool to mediate this issue.

The #openweb is a space for both progressives and reactionary groups

One thing we need to address now in a constructive way is that the right-wing has been better about co-operating around #openweb media than the left-wing for the last 10 years. We have been worse than useless on simple things like linking between radical media projects. The few successfully left media groups have abandoned alt tech solutions and built careers inside the #dotcons

Where we progressives have seceded, in terms of #openweb, has been outside politics and more in lifestyle subcultures with mastodon and the fedivers, these tools have been political natural and focused on privacy. We start to see the use of these tools for radical and progressive agenders with #visionontv and #indymediaback with the radical anarchism of #kolektiva and the #openweb framework of #OMN

With the #mainstreaming move away from the #dotcons we will see more activity in this area from both progressives and reactionary groups – make your voice heard – its pastime for you to #stepback to the #openweb

https://activism.openworlds.info